


Interlude

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sick!Dean, caretaker!sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:46:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean comes back from a hunt sick. Sam gets a taste of what his brother's life has always been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rust-Red](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653243) by [Linden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden). 



> Okay, so this was an attempt to shake loose my writer's block. Just a little bit of nothing that really goes nowhere, and I started drinking near the end...you might be able to tell. Oh, well...enjoy.
> 
> And a big thank-you to Linden for her beautiful _Rust-Red_ that gave me enough of a push to get some words out on paper.

A hard shiver sketched itself across Sam’s shoulders in a blast of cold air as Dean trudged in the room and dropped his bag at the end of the bed closest to the door.

‘Close the damn door,’ he groused without looking up.

‘Hey to you, too,’ Dean grumbled. Sam slanted him a look. ‘You know, you shouldn’t just assume it’s me, little brother.’

‘I recognized Caleb’s engine,’ Sam replied with a half shrug. ‘Besides, I always know when it’s you.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Dean kicked at his bag unenthusiastically, rubbed a hand briefly at his sternum, and sat down on the end of the bed to pull off his jacket and boots. He coughed once and cleared his throat.

‘You’re late, by the way,’ Sam said, attention still bent on his Chemistry book, but sliding a furtive glance to the side from beneath his lashes. Dean was bent over his knees, boots unlaced but still on, jacket pooled on the bed around his hips, and Sam didn’t like the way his chest seemed to be working a little harder than it should for no more effort than his brother was putting into undressing.

‘Storm came down on us faster than we expected. Took longer to get out. Sorry,’ Dean mumbled in the direction of his feet. He coughed again.

‘Could have called,’ Sam said, but his tone didn’t have any of the usual abrasion in it because Dean was still just sitting there, pulling air in and out, and Sam could see the way his back muscles were constricting, resistant  against another cough. He laid his pencil down and pushed his book away to turn his full attention on his brother. 

‘Had shit for reception up there,’ Dean said. He sat up, palm pressed to his chest for a second, and then toed at his boots. He leaned on the edge of the bed, like he was garnering his strength to stand up, and coughed again. This time it was harder, rougher sounding, and Sam was up and on the bed, leaning over Dean’s back and working at his shirts, hands sliding up under layers of fabric, sure but gentle, looking for wounds, testing for bruises or broken ribs.

Dean sucked in a deep breath, forced back against another cough, and caught at Sam's wandering hands through his shirt. ''M okay, Sammy.'

'Dean, that cough—' 

'The wind was brutal up there,' Dean cut him off and gently pushed his hands away. 'Just got a tickle in my throat. Hot shower should fix me right up.'

Sam backed off, let Dean stand up, slow and tired, his every move speaking to exhaustion, and he worried at his bottom lip over the way his fingers still tingled with the clammy cold of Dean's skin. 

The nexus for this hunt had been about three hours north up into the foothills. Dean had questioned the weather, not wanting to get caught up there mostly because he didn't want to leave Sam alone more than the forty-eight it was already going to take them. Not like Sam wasn’t a big enough boy to look after himself at sixteen, it was just, well. Dean had a thing, and it mostly involved not letting Sam out of his sight for any extended period of time.

The storm had apparently caught them anyway, but luckily not stranded them. Either way, Dean should have had plenty of time to warm up on the drive back. Only he hadn't, and that didn't sit well with Sam. 

'Did the hunt go all right?' he asked as Dean slowly stripped out of his t-shirt on the way to the bathroom. Sam didn't miss the shiver that skittered across Dean's upper body, raising gooseflesh as it went. He got up and went for the heater, cranking it up another couple of degrees. 

'Yeah, it was fine. Damn thing turned out to be pretty easy to put down for once. Couple head shots dropped it. Salted and burned it anyway.  Just in case.' Dean yanked at his button fly, paused to cough again, and then stepped out of his jeans. 'Job well done.'

'Nothing bruised? Broken? Bleeding?' Sam asked, eyes still searching methodically over his brother's body, cataloging all the existing scars—the healing burn on Dean's left bicep, the still bright pink welt across the top of his shoulder from the Balinook they'd gone after three weeks ago that had laid him open deep enough Sam had to stitch him up when they got back. 

'Nope.' Dean smiled. It was tired and pinched at the corners. He coughed again, tried to hold it back, and ended up braced on the door frame for a second when it finally tore up out of his chest, gritty and harsh and rattling. 'Whole and unscathed this time,' he managed once he had his breath back. 

'Yeah? Well, you sound like shit,' Sam said, and there was anger in his tone because Dean was trying to do what he always did and act like there was nothing wrong with him, but the sound of that cough was setting up a sympathetic ache in Sam's chest, and he wondered just how long that shit had been going on. 

'Hot shower,' Dean said again, smiled tightly, and disappeared into the bathroom. 

Sam picked up Dean’s clothes where he’d dropped them and hefted his bag up onto the bed. That was a clue right there that Dean wasn’t a hundred percent. He had left his weapons sitting in the floor. Sam was sure they would not have stopped long enough to clean up before they hightailed it out in front of the storm, and it wasn’t like his brother to leave his gun in any condition less than pristine and ready to fire. John had drilled the need for preparedness into them far too hard for that, and Dean had a funny thing about always having a weapon on him, especially when Sam was around. Something had happened a long time ago, something that had put the granite in John’s gaze when he looked at his oldest son, but Sam knew better than to ever ask either man the specifics of it. Whatever it was, it had raised Dean’s awareness of his need to look out for his little brother just that much more, and consequently, he never went without a weapon of some kind even if it was just the switchblade he kept down his boot.

Sam upended said boot and the blade dropped out on the bed. He added Dean’s clothes to their laundry pile, set his boots beside the bed where they were in easy reach if it became a sudden and urgent necessity to shag ass out of there, and then laid out Dean’s gun and knives and his cleaning supplies on the bed before going back to the table and a cup of lukewarm coffee to finish his last Chemistry problem. He kept half an ear to the bathroom, listening to the water run in the sink as Dean brushed his teeth and coughed around a mouthful of toothpaste, heard the shower start up and his brother clear his throat again, spit into the drain no doubt, and then cough again, this time harder, wetter, deeper than before. He twitched in his chair, wanting to get up and go to the door and see if Dean was all right. Dean was a bear when he was sick, though, the slim handful of times Sam could even recall him being sick, and Sam was pretty fond of the permanent attachment his head had to his shoulders and didn’t relish the thought of having it bit off by Dean’s sharp irritation, so he kept his seat. 

Steam eventually started to curl from around the poorly hung bathroom door and condensation actually started to form on the outside of it despite Sam’s having turned up the room’s heat. 

‘Jesus, Dean, you’re gonna give yourself heatstroke,’ he mumbled as he flopped his book closed on the last of his homework and dropped it in his bag. He stretched out, unkinking knotted muscles and twisting a little side to side to loosen up his back. If Dean weren’t in such shit shape, he’d ask him to rub it down for him because his muscles were still recovering from that headlong toss he’d taken last weekend when they’d tackled a poltergeist two towns over. As it was, though, Dean looked like he needed a pillow, a double dose of ibuprofen, and twelve hours of sleep. Sam wasn’t about to ask anything for himself right now, so he just leaned back in the chair farther, stretching upward and closing his eyes, reveling in the sensation of his spine fully extending. 

That’s when he heard the thick wet hacking from the bathroom that turned over into gasping and then to choked retching accompanied by a heavy thud against the shower wall and the clatter of the shower curtain rings jerking against the rod. 

‘Fuck. Dean!’ Sam was up and out of his chair, sending it teetering precariously on its uneven legs before it righted at the last second, and banging on the bathroom door. ‘Dean, you all right?’

There was no answer but more gasping and retching interspersed with wet, phlegmy coughs.

‘I’m coming in, Dean,’ Sam said, already turning the knob and pushing back the wave of wet heat that billowed out of the bathroom.

Dean was half in, half out of the shower, curtain caught and tangled in his fingers where he'd jerked it back in an effort to retch into the toilet, skin flushed from the heat of the water but still pale underneath by comparison to his usual soft petal-blush. He coughed, retched, cleared his throat, nearly gagged, and then spit into the bowl. There was soap still in his hair running down into his eyes, he was dripping on the cheap, pock-marked linoleum, and shivering from the comparatively frigid air coming from the room outside. He sucked in a breath that rattled and wheezed on its way down and came back up damp and gurgling.

Sam caught his brother under the arms and steadied him, just holding him there while he tried to breathe in and out, then slowly lowered him down into the tub and reached to turn off the spray.

''M fine, Sammy,' Dean insisted, breathy and uneven and gasping. 

'You're a damn wreck is what you are,' Sam retorted, but there was no venom in it and only thinly disguised worry. He searched the counter behind him blindly for one of the sealed-for-your-protection cups and ripped open the plastic with his teeth before he stuck it under the hot running water lapping at Dean's legs where they were pretzeled in the bottom of the tub. 'Tip your head back.'

Dean obeyed without a fight, closing his eyes as Sam lifted the cup over his head and slowly poured out the water against his scalp, fingers rubbing and sifting gently at the leftover shampoo still in Dean's hair. He repeated the gesture three more times, until the water ran clear and Dean was shivering so hard from the cold Sam could barely keep the water from getting in his eyes. He slapped off the faucet and grabbed every clean towel in the room to drape across Dean’s shoulders while Sam scrubbed his hair dry, fingers firm and quick but gentle.

‘Can you stand up?’ he asked.

Dean shifted his weight, caught at Sam’s hands when they reached down to help him. ‘Sam, seriously. ‘M okay—’

But it was hardly convincing when just those few roughly spoken words sent him into another coughing fit that had him doubled over the side of the tub and half into Sam’s strong arms.

‘Dammit, Dean,’ Sam cursed as he held his brother steady while he tried to catch his breath. ‘Will you just let me fucking help? You are _not_ well.’ He looped an arm around Dean’s chest and dragged him upward. ‘Now. Just. Stand there for a second.’

Sam quickly and carefully rubbed the remaining water from Dean’s chilled skin and ducked out into the room to grab his sweats and a tee. Dean drew the line when it came to Sam helping him get dressed, though. He was having none of it, and rather than exhaust his brother further with an argument, Sam gave in and just stood guard at the door, muscles tense and at the ready should Dean reel too far off center or fall into another coughing fit that would have him gasping and gagging again.

‘Have you eaten?’ Sam asked, trailing behind Dean into the room, hands floating a breath's worth of air from his brother’s back as he trembled and shivered erratically. ‘Are you hungry?’

'Nah, too damn tired,' Dean rasped. He eyed the bed where Sam had laid out his weapons waiting for a good, thorough cleaning. Sam could see his shoulders visibly tense and then fall an inch in resignation as he shuffled his exhaustion back behind the more immediate needs and responsibilities of being prepared. Never go to bed with a dirty gun. Never be caught without a weapon. Sam etched John's name in fire behind his eyelids and struck it through with iron and salt for ever having trained his son to believe that there were things more important than himself, more important than his health. Than his own life.

Dean made to sit down on the bed and Sam reached out, hooked Dean’s little finger with his own and tugged. It was a gesture Sam hadn’t used in years, not since he was small and would catch at Dean’s big hand with his own thin, small one in moments when the crowd at their new school was too much, or the dark of the motel room was too close and cloying and Sam could feel the nightmares creeping up on him even in his waking hours.

It got Dean’s attention. His fingers immediately tightened, and his whole body turned, leaning, making room to take Sam up against his side like he had always done in years past. It took him a few seconds to register that his little brother wasn’t really little, and he was using his own ample strength to steer Dean to the other bed.

‘Sam…’

‘Dean, just leave it,’ Sam said and secured a hold on Dean’s wrist that he didn’t fight. He pulled Dean around and pushed gently until he was sitting down on the bed, then turned and grabbed all the pillows from the other bed and piled them against the headboard. ‘Lean back.’

Dean scowled hard but let Sam nudge him back into the somewhat fluffy nest, covering his mouth against another cough. This one sounded deeper, but not as thick and wet, and Sam hoped it was just the abundance of heat and steam from the shower that had knocked all that stuff loose in Dean’s chest.

‘It’s just a cold, Sam. I’m good. Will you stop fussing?’ Dean insisted as Sam tugged at the sheets and blankets and settled them up around Dean’s shoulders.

‘Would you stop insisting you’re fine and just let me fuss a little?’ Sam shot back. ‘Are you still cold?’

Dean considered for a moment and then assented with a bare nod and a half shrug. Sam cleared the other bed, laying all the weapons out on the table on top of his completed Chemistry problems, and then yanked the comforter off and spread it across Dean.

‘Gotta clean my gun, Sam,’ Dean mumbled. The added warmth was working quickly with Dean’s bone deep exhaustion from the hunt and fighting whatever bug had ahold of him to push him toward sleep.

‘It’ll keep until morning,’ Sam said. ‘I got my Taurus.’

He pulled the gun from the back of his waistband to prove it and laid it on the nightstand between the beds.

The corner of Dean’s mouth hitched up in a tired smile. ‘That’s my boy.’

Sam couldn’t help the warming flush that came at his brother’s approval. Dean had always been much more liberal in his praise than John, but it still pleased him when he managed something that earned him one of Dean’s eye-twinkling grins. Though there wasn’t much bright or shining about Dean’s eyes right now. They were mostly dull and dark and slightly glassed over. Sam put a hand to his cheek and then slipped it up to feel his forehead. The shower had washed off the clammy and left behind a dry, low burning heat.

‘You’re running a fever.’

‘Cold, Sammy,’ Dean said again. ‘Just a cold. Lemme sleep for a few hours and I’ll be fine.’

Sam couldn’t argue that sleep was probably the best thing for him right now, but made the decision to go out first thing in the morning and restock on juice and soup and pick up medicine if Dean’s fever crept higher during the night. He wasn’t burning up, just unpleasantly warm, and he was in all likelihood correct that it was just a stupid cold, but it didn’t make Sam’s insides any less jittery.

Dean shivered again, slid a little further down into the pillows, coughed harsh and dry until he was out of air and Sam was sitting beside him with a palm pressed warm and wide between Dean’s shoulder blades, rubbing sure strokes down his spine in an effort to give him a rhythm to breathe in time to.

'Dean, when did this start?' Sam asked, brow wrinkled in concern. He pushed at Dean's shoulder until he got him to roll onto his side in hopes that would help keep his lungs clear.

Dean mashed one of the pillows into shape under his cheek and pulled his body in tight, curving it around Sam's hips where he sat, and shivered again. 'Few hours into the hike up into the hills,' he admitted in a sleepy mumble.

'And you still stayed out in this freezing cold.' Sam huffed an irritated breath into his messy bangs. 

'Wasn't gonna turn around and leave Caleb to handle it alone just 'cause I had a sniffle,' Dean said, the last words getting caught up in another coughing fit.

Sam continued to rub Dean's back, kneading into tensely strung muscles with his long, nimble fingers. 'Well, that sniffle could just as easily turn into pneumonia, you know.'

'Don't be a little bitch, Sam,' Dean grumbled into the pillow, burying another cough there. 'It's just a damn cold. Stop being melodramatic.' He curled up even tighter, knees tucking in close to Sam's thigh, and shivered violently. 'Jesus, Sam…you turn the heat off or something?'

'No, Dean. I turned it up. You're chilling and running a fever,' Sam said. 'I think this is worse than a cold.'

Dean said nothing but curled inward, making himself smaller under the blankets. Sam sighed and stood up.

'Where you goin'?' Dean asked at the sudden absence of his brother's body heat.

'Just…keep your shirt on.' Sam kicked off his shoes and picked up his gun. Dean's eyes cracked open and trailed him around the room, curious, as Sam tucked the gun under the lone, squashed pillow on the empty side of his bed, flipped on the bathroom light, switched off the lamp in the corner, and stripped down to his boxers in a couple of deft moves that left Dean wondering when exactly his skinny kid brother had traded the 'skinny' for 'lithe' and 'little' for the fine sharp edge of near manhood. When had Sam started to grow into his body? Which night had Dean closed his eyes on the boy and woken up to the young man who could turn the tables on him in more than just a rough sparring match; but here, too, encroaching on the territory Dean had claimed for himself, stepping up to the plate and learning to give back what he'd been free to take since the first time he'd smiled, toothless, hazel eyes still ringed in baby blue, up at Dean from the warm, close circle of Mary's arms.

Sam slipped between the sheets and scooted up against Dean's back.

'Watcha doin', Sam?' Dean asked as Sam shoved his right arm beneath the stack of pillows propping his brother up and pushed his toes between Dean's ankles until he shifted his leg enough to allow Sam to slot his knee between Dean's, then he wound his left arm around Dean's waist and settled his palm flat and firm against his chest. Dean tensed for a second. 'Sammy?'

Sam pressed his nose into Dean's shoulder and yawned. 'You're in my spot.'

Dean nodded slowly, coughed once, but with Sam's hand resting against his chest and breathing slow and strong against his back, it was much easier for Dean not to lose himself to another fit and to keep breathing on his own slow and steady. He pressed back into the curve of Sam's long body, felt the soft tickle of his curls against his neck and the back of his jaw.

'Sleep with a gun under your pillow now, little brother?' he murmured into the near dark.

'Only for you, Dean,' Sam whispered, voice already drifting and soft edged with sleep. He tucked a fraction of an inch closer, closing all the gaps between their bodies and pressing them flush together.

'Talk like that'll turn a guy's head,' Dean said. He felt Sam grin against his shoulder and a warm puff of air through his tee when he laughed.

'Go to sleep, Dean,' Sam said and pressed his mouth to the knob at the top of Dean's spine for a long, slow heartbeat before ducking his head again to bury his nose behind Dean's shoulder blade.

When Dean shivered again, it had nothing to do with being cold.

——

Sam never really slept that night.

He was unaccustomed to the hard angles of his gun under the thin, flattened motel pillow. Dean was the one who slept with his gun, and always in the bed closest to the door. Dean had still managed to be closest to the door, but for the first time in his life Sam felt the uneasy weight of responsibility pressing down on him.

He'd had Dean's back in a fight and on the hunt since his hands were big enough to hold a gun and his motor control fine enough to throw a knife. But Dean had still always been larger than life to him, always the protector, the shield that stood between Sam and the world and every stinking, vile, evil creature in it. Now, with Dean under his hands, chest hitching and rumbling on labored, uneven breaths, Sam felt his brother's mortality for the first time.

His heart thudded slow and hard behind his ribs, fear filling up his lungs that Sam swallowed against again and again until he had the thunder of it contained at the back of his throat and could breathe past it in shallow sips of air. Dean stirred restlessly under his arm and coughed in his sleep. He was starting to sweat and kick at the blankets. Sam pushed the top layer of covers away and tucked up closer to Dean's back, soothing a hand across his chest and down lower, petting across his stomach as it quivered, fighting to draw in a steady breath. He found himself laying down a line a kisses along his brother's shoulder, up to the juncture of his neck where he whispered meaningless sighs against his hot, damp skin. Sam wasn't sure which of them it was meant to calm, but Dean settled deeper into sleep, and Sam's heart settled into a softer rhythm, something more in time with the deep, steady thrum under his palm where it rested over Dean's own beating heart.

Sam snuggled in closer still, pressing his nose into the short, soft hairs at the back of Dean's neck and breathing in the scent of warm and soap and sweat and Dean. He mouthed softly at the pulse of blood just under the skin pressed to his lips.

'I've got you, Dean,' he whispered. 'I've got you this time. Every time. Whenever you need me.'

Dean made a soft sound of almost pleasure in his sleep and leaned back into the cradle of Sam's embrace just a little bit more. Sam closed his eyes against the dark and all its uncertainties, felt the reality of gunmetal beneath his head, and let himself doze lightly as the deep black of night spread itself thin into the cool grey of dawn.

——

Somewhere between the hazy pink of sunrise and the hard slant of yellow mid-morning light through the gap in the heavy curtains, Dean's fever broke and his breathing eased a little into something less deep and ominous and more common congestion. Only then, safe behind salt, with iron and silver under his cheek, and Dean held tight against him, did Sam finally allow himself to fall asleep.


End file.
